12:09 AM

behind my eyes, a fire tonight.
it is late and sleep sinks
steadily into my bones.
my body slips in and out of distortion
- a sad jumble of molecules -
disconcerting.

there are no words for days
that throb with the urgency of now
like a fist on the only door out
of a plane going down.

i pray for a reprieve,
for the kingdom come,
the will be done,
but i am only chanting mantras.

so please,
bring substance to these lips
pour your water around the roots
let something take shape
out of this dry aching heap

bringing purpose to a paper chain
i do not want to count down
and throw away
every. single. day.

a strange land

i have a severe hate of facebook most of the time. it's addicting, and artificial. and tends to give me an inferiority complex the likes of which have not been seen since middle school. i often feel left out. i know i'm not that cool, i know i'm not artistic or hipster or musical. i'm not charismatic or boisterous or funny. but i'd rather not know what everyone is doing all the time, so that i can assume, in a little bubble of blissful ignorance, that maybe i'm not missing out on all that much.

i probably shouldn't admit all this here.

uneccesary rant complete.


onto better things:

By the waters of Babylon,
there we sat down and wept,
when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
we hung up our lyres.
For there our captors
required of us our songs,
and our tormentors, mirth, saying,
"Sing us one of those songs of Zion!"

How shall we sing the Lord's song
in a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand forget it's skill!
Let my tongue stick to the roof of my
mouth
if I do not remember you,
If I do not set Jersualem
above my highest joy.

Psalm 137:1-4

What a powerful declaration and devotion to their home. Do I hold this kind of unbreakable love to the Kingdom of God? Probably not. But I can feel that something is not right in all this temporary. The unrest, the need for something greater, exists for a reason.

last ditch effort

i dreamed your family was on the street where i grew up. they had been camping in someone's yard the night before. it was morning and i was looking out the windows of a bus, watching each person take photographs to capture the absurdity. i hadn't seen you yet, but i realized quickly that you must be there. i saw her first, hair wrapped up in messy braids. she was taking your picture. as soon as i saw it i fled.

then i was in chicago, trying to get to the beach. we had inner tubes to stay afloat but there was an undertow. we finally got a bus driver to take us the rest of the way. i gave my inner tube to an exhausted girl with burnt red cheeks. the boy who sat across from me had 3 names, and i quickly realized he'd been on the cruise with me a few weeks before. we arrived at our destination, but it was dark at 3:30 in the afternoon. we marvelled at the northern lights. the boy wouldn't leave the bus, and somehow i had his wallet in my hands.

i screamed and yelled at him to leave. he was determined to stay on the bus. i was getting frightened that we all would never make it home in time. finally, in a last ditch effort, i put my hand over my heart. this gesture made him jump off the bus and give me a hug for saving him.

i woke to thunder and lightning. i woke to sheets of rain falling down. i woke to these vivid dreams, inescapable fragments ringing in my ears.

good morning

i woke to a phone call from my mother. she was in the neighborhood. that doesn't happen often. she wanted to come up to my apartment and drink coffee. i rolled out of bed, disheveled to say the least, just in time to respond to her buzz. she breezed in, sat at the kitchen table, and told me about her cooking class, her job, her weekend plans. once in awhile, she would glance around, taking a silent, subconscious inventory of her surroundings. never sure if i pass the screening, i shifted in my seat.

these days come with subtle differences hardly noteworthy as isolated incidents, but combined make up the waves in slow sea change. some call it growing up, and the 20s is ripe with examples. my mom becoming a friend, an equal, a confidant, isn't even all that rare or original.

this particular incident, however, is one i must admit i enjoy.

don't think, just shoot.

i have no money, but i am absolutely itching to get my hands on one of these cameras.

i've got this very naive obsession with lomography. i love the philosophy and the saturated lo-fi images it produces. i could spend hours looking at photos, reading up on history, and daydreaming about the day that i can have one of these cameras as my own. it all seems to fall in step with my general aversion to the technological 'advancements' our age boasts. more bars in more places isn't always a good thing. more status updates in 140 letters or less isn't always a good thing. more megapixels isn't always a good thing.

holga isn't all that expensive, and has an endearingly boxy body. but diana holds a little more sophistication and appeal for me. and, of course, the dream camera would be the lca-a+. i just know that the day i put down money on this, i want to be prepared to invest a good amount of time and resources. i want to get different lenses, film, and feel freedom to experiment.

so i keep holding out. and wistfully looking at pictures when i get bored.

flashbacks

i read through my old YWAM journal today. not the personal one, but the required one. the one we had to write as "homework" each week. the one i got poor marks on, because it wasn't colorful enough. nevermind that i poured my heart out on the pages. appearance trumps content, apparently. i complied.

it was week 11 of our lecture phase. we were all gearing up to go over to Africa. we were learning about evangelism. a couple notes that i took from the speaker:

"community operates in this way: belong -> believe -> behave"

"society in post-modernity is moving back towards seeking spirituality and interdependence."

the first quote bothered me. it sounds like it came from a slightly brainwashed version of myself. but, maybe, it's true. it might just be out of order. i think first, you need to believe before you can really belong. believe in the purpose, the meaning, the need. only then can you really belong to something. but, 'behave'? the word has a negative connotation, sure. but still, is that the end goal of community? i hope not.

the second quote makes sense. i see it everywhere. i feel like people are more than willing to seek out levels of spirituality in everyday life. people my age are recognizing the isolation we all live in, and are craving to be a part of something greater. we all know that facebook, twitter, texts, blogs even, portray false, edited versions of ourselves. autheticity is deeply jeopardized in these glossy mediums of communication.

interesting that these 2 points were made on a week focusing on evangelism. they probably had to do with relational evangelism, and they ring true now more than ever before, as i live in des moines indefinitely. YWAM was the fullest i've ever been immersed in community, but i'd like to recreate glimpses here. why not?

...

in the margins of the same journal i read snippets describing holy moments shared in australia: on trains, on beaches, communing over fish and chips and pancakes. the atmosphere was pristine but the real beauty was living gritty, side-by-side life with uninhibited, humble people. from the second week onward, we knew everything about everyone. strengths and weaknesses. and we loved all the greater because of it.

i think of them everyday, in some small impereceptible way, with the greatest gratitude possible.

work in progress...

ours is a well-rounded love.

ours is a love left in the sweet summer sun,
sprinkled with freckles, always warm to the touch.
our love does not rely on our own understanding
it is three-legged and sturdy - sustained by Holy

our love has rearranged our ears and our eyes
so that in watching i hear you
and listening i see you sincerely.

our love is regardless: a sarifice, and i'm not afraid
in the best moments and in the worst
i'm shaking, but you stay by my side.

our love is fluid, not static, but dynamic:
a timeline of events, scribbled dates and facts
on palms and foreheads we display our devotion
and in our hearts - a history we have chosen to create.

desperate times.

we tread lightly these days and i wish it weren't so. i'd rather not be so finely tuned to your every move. we haven't met since father's day and now we greet with only a glance. your body - long and curved into a black t-shirt - is thinner than i've seen in years. the traits we have in common are few, but we hold them like banners trudging into a war. through crowds of people we shoot our desperate arrows in all directions. knowing the plunder will be your laughter makes this task all the sweeter. we trade small tokens and keep discussion minimized. i purposely keep quiet when you give victory to karma. these are the measures we take to keep peace.

hopscotch.

i have been floating around in a blissful cloud for the past few months - some call it summer - unaware of the simple, consistent happiness i had found. but isn't that typical? you never notice something until it's gone.

these last few days have been a strange void. the subtle shifting of seasons could hold partial blame, but really i'm not sure why i've been down lately. i mean, there are dozens of trite, surface-level reasons, but deep inside, at the root of it all, i'm not sure what has suddenly gone amiss.

i read an article about gluttony yesterday. it talked about the sin of excess. how gluttony has very little to do with food, and much to do with selfishness and isolation. "Gluttony is primarily about seperating ourselves from others." "Gluttony is the temptation that most often suceeds in drawing us away from our duties. The deadly aspect of gluttony is always twofold. Immoderation not only emaciates our mind and heart; indirectly it lets someone else starve."

i felt like i'd been kicked in the back of my knees, because that is what i've been doing lately as i've hid out in my little mopey rut: i've been selfish. i've put myself ahead of others. i've snapped at my cousins, at my boyfriend, at God, at customers at caribou. i've ignored phone calls and lacked follow-through. i've felt somehow entitled to this anger. so leave me alone.

but i know i need people. i need to get my hands dirty again in the community of it all. it has always been the hardest thing for me to do, and yet the most essential.

and i need to go for a run. the rhythm will shake the cobwebs.

crusty mystery stains

today, i scrubbed walls. i filled a bucket with sudsy, hot water and i marched into the lonely, blank depths of the church - determined to make some sort of difference. with a warm washcloth i scoured ever surface, covering windowsills, counter tops, tables, and chairs. i was appalled by all the mystery stains that confronted me: yellow clumps, brownish lumps, moth and cricket carcasses, tacks, coffee splatters, paint droplets, dried blood, and the list goes on. once, not all that long ago, this space was a daycare. i don't think all these smudges and scuffs appeared after the fact. so, all of these unpleasantries were around little vulnerable people, day in and day out.

as i set about my work, i was thankful for my music-playing cellphone like never before. jammed in my pocket, it sang on shuffle some tunes that i'd completely forgotten were on there: the likes of arcade fire, death cab, starlight mints, and the anniversary greeted me anew. I even let myself sing outloud once in awhile, because it's not like anyone else was around.

after awhile, the crouching and prune-y fingers started to become vaguely familiar to me. where have i done this before? the answer surprised me a little: Africa.

i scrubbed identically dirty walls in Guinea-Bissau, and again in Tanzania. I did this kind of work day in and day out. the strange thing is, the whole time i cleaned in Africa, i had a little shred of pride for my own country: a clean, neat, organized country. we didn't allow our walls to get so gross. we clean regularly. we are sanitary. we have antibacterial soap.

well, if you'd taken a look at the walls i cleaned today, you'd think otherwise. you'd know what i know: we are no better. and that's something i should remember regularly. different, yes. better, no.

because the days are not disposable...

so, i will write a blog. a fresh page, a new start, a break-away from my juvenile attempts to be heard in years past. i am a skeptic, but it must be done, because all i ever really do is write. i narrate scenes in my mind, search for synonyms in my heart, keep scraps of poetry in my pockets. but i've been missing the place where these odds and ends can be shuffled and stored. safely.

maybe this will be the place.